Traditional and generally accepted security measures and common security infrastructure, such as passwords, key management software, and two-factor authentication approaches have failed to deliver reliable and secure protection of both the infrastructures they are meant to protect, as well as the individual user's’ personal data.
The increased number of hacks, attacks, security breaches, successful fraud attempts, and stolen passwords from end-users—and even entire databases from private companies as well as public/government organizations—have led to declining trust from users regarding organizations that provision their credentials and integrity of the personal data that is used to provide user access. Generally, data compromise generates a lack of confidence in trusting personal identifiable information to anyone. This increased user fear and concern for individual data privacy, as well as personal data safety held by third parties, have led to increased technical challenges for organizations to maintain and protect the personal identifiable information of their users. For example, conventional methods typically require increased resources to improve data center monitoring and security—including firewalls, secure environments, data breach detection, penetration testing, resilience exercises against potential hacks and security breaches.
The main reason for the lack of security in conventional systems is that outdated concepts and poor fundamental design is commonly used in technologies and practices aimed at establishing and protecting identity as well as existing (or a potential user's) personal details. Most organizations using these outdated technologies are forced to store any personal data collected centrally and store the personal data “as is”—unencrypted. Even when it's encrypted, such data currently can be stolen and used elsewhere for nefarious purposes, due to the single point of compromise in the conventional approaches.
While there are many faults within conventional personal identity management systems, some examples include: storing data in its initial or apparent form; storing data in open form or un-encrypted; storing data in encrypted form that can easily be restored to their initial or open form; storing of passwords including digital keys; existence of backdoors; not decentralized, “all eggs in one basket” storage; having a single point of compromise; and conceptually offering any form of “trusted authorities.”
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an improved system for personal identity management in an effort to overcome the aforementioned obstacles and deficiencies of conventional data collection, storage, query, and management systems.
It should be noted that the figures are not drawn to scale and that elements of similar structures or functions are generally represented by like reference numerals for illustrative purposes throughout the figures. It also should be noted that the figures are only intended to facilitate the description of the preferred embodiments. The figures do not illustrate every aspect of the described embodiments and do not limit the scope of the present disclosure.